Hundreds of thousands of Italian Facebook users woke up yesterday to discover that they had become friends of Silvio Berlusconi.
La Repubblica newspaper said that members of existing Facebook groups supporting the victims of April’s earthquake in Abruzzo or promoting Italian products had been signed up for new sites such as “We support Berlusconi” and “Thank you Silvio.”
The fake groups “We support Berlusconi against Massimo Tartaglia”, with 380,000 members and “Solidarity for Silvio Berlusconi” with almost two million, had been removed. On the other hand, though the “Fans of Massimo Tartaglia” group with 60,000 members had been cancelled, the sites praising the attaker appeared to be genuine, with comment ranging from “Long live Tartaglia” to “Massimo, marry me, I beg you”.
Roberto Maroni, the interior Minister, accused social networking sites of instigating violence and “disseminating hatred”, and pleadged to close them down.
Facebook said that it will monitor its website dealing with the Italian Prime Minister Silviio Berlusconi.
[Source: Times Online]
